Moonkind (Winterling)
Read Moonkind (Winterling) Online
Authors: Sarah Prineas
To Deb Coates, who taught me that dog reasons are not our reasons. Also to her dog, Blue, who thinks about rabbits even more than Rook does.
Contents
Under a full moon, four black horses raced over the hills, their hooves drumming on the grass, their flame-colored eyes flashing. The leader, a tall horse whose mane was braided and knotted with glinting crystals, swerved, finding a new course, and the rest of the horses swerved too and galloped on, following.
Pucks, all of them.
Three of the pucks raced along, reveling in their strength, in the stretch of muscles moving under a smooth coat, in their strong bond with one another, and in the wind blowing through their manes. They were running toward trouble and chaos and fun, and the whole reason for being a puck.
The fourth puck felt all that, but he felt something else, too.
He was a puck, and as a puck he should be true only to his brother-pucks and nobody else. But he had a thread, the merest fragile spider-silk thread, tying his heart to another heart far away. He wasn’t sure what the thread was, exactly. It was just there, and somehow he didn’t quite want to break it, though breaking it would be as easy as taking a breath and letting it out again. So on he ran, free and wild with his brothers, but feeling at the same time the faintest pull toward something else.
Ahead was a forest, dark and thick with pine trees. As they drew near it, the horses slowed. The air around them blurred, and one by one they changed from horse to person-shaped for just a moment, and then another swift, blurring change into dog. And now a small pack of black-furred, yellow-eyed dogs ran shoulder to shoulder through the dark, piney woods.
They flowed like a furry, black river over fallen trunks and piles of stone, winding through the close-growing trees. Above them the wind raced too, making a
rush-rush-rush
sound in the high branches.
At last the four dogs came to a mossy clearing. They spat out their shifter-tooths and stood panting in their person shapes again. The moon hung directly over the clearing, casting sharp shadows.
“Is this it?” one of the pucks asked. For clothes he wore a wrap made of tattered, yellow silk.
The second puck, this one wearing nothing but red and black paint, answered. His eyes glinted with a redder flame than his brother-pucks’ did. “It is,” he growled. “Quiet.”
The third puck, the leader with the long braids woven with shiny bits, glanced up at the moon. “Any moment now, and the Way here will open.” He nodded at the painted puck. “It’s going to be a wonderful trick, this.”
The painted puck barked out a laugh. “This is maybe the best puck-plan ever made, brothers. It’ll turn everything upside down.”
The leader glanced aside at the fourth puck, the youngest of them all. The one with the strange heart-thread that they all knew about but didn’t understand. “You’re with us, Rook?”
The puck called Rook wore ragged shorts and had bare feet. Old scars traced like jagged, white lines across his chest and one shoulder. He stood a little separate from his brothers as if he was with them, but not
quite
the same as they were.
The other pucks watched, their yellow eyes shining, and waited to hear what Rook would say.
“Well, Brother?” the leader puck asked.
In answer, Rook nodded. Then he grinned. “I am with you, yes,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The girl named Fer lay on her back in her grandmother’s yard gazing up at the full moon. Here in the human world, the wheel of the seasons had turned again while she’d been gone, and time had flowed away, and shy spring was edging out from behind winter’s shadow. Fer felt the chill of cold dirt underneath her back; dry grass prickled against her bare arms. She shivered. In a moment she’d go in and see Grand-Jane, but she needed more time outside first.
The moon, the moon. In her own land, the Summerlands, the moon was full too, but there the summer was turning brittle with the coming of fall.
“Is that you, Jennifer?” came Grand-Jane’s voice from the direction of the house.
Fer turned her head. Her grandma was standing on the bottom of the steps leading to the kitchen door. In the darkness she was mostly a shadow wrapped in a knitted sweater, but the moon gleamed in her hair, making it glow white.
Was Grand-Jane’s hair whiter than it had been before? Did her face look more tired? Fer wasn’t sure. It was hard to remember, when time passed so quickly here and so slowly in the Summerlands.
“Yes, it’s me,” Fer answered. “I’ll be right there.”
The sky wasn’t as dark here as it was in the Summerlands. Here the lights from town meant the stars never seemed close enough to touch and the moon’s beams were not so pure a silver.
Fer’s place was through the Way, but something always drew her back to Grand-Jane. Love, of course—that was part of it. Maybe she also needed the reminder that she was human—partly human, anyway—and still a girl even though she was supposed to be a wise and noble Lady of her land too. Sometimes being both of those things was confusing. Some of what had happened was confusing, too, and a little frightening. She’d spent the summer tending to her land and trying to decide if she’d made a huge mistake. Talking to Grand-Jane about it would make everything clearer.
“Are you going to come in?” came Grand-Jane’s voice from the steps.
If she wanted Grand-Jane’s advice she’d have to go into the house. But it made her twitchy, being closed inside a roof and walls.
“Now, my girl,” Grand-Jane insisted.
Fer pushed herself up and stood, the ground cold under her bare feet. At the kitchen door, Grand-Jane opened her arms and Fer came into them, putting her head on her grandma’s shoulder. For that one second she was just a girl and didn’t have to make any hard decisions or be noble or brave. She took a deep, shuddering breath.
“All right,” Grand-Jane said softly. She dropped a quick kiss on Fer’s forehead and then held her at arm’s length, inspecting her. “You look tired.”
“A lot has happened,” Fer said.
“Well.” Grand-Jane frowned. “Come inside and tell me about it.” She went into the kitchen, crossing to the counter, where she put the kettle on the stove and turned it on. “What happened to the puck?” she asked.
“Oh, Rook,” Fer said with a sigh, and leaned against the door frame. “He’s gone off with his brothers.”
“Is he your friend?” Grand-Jane asked.
“I don’t know,” Fer answered. He’d almost betrayed her. She wanted to think of him as a friend, but every time she felt as if a bond of friendship had formed between them, he reminded her that he was a puck. To him, being a puck meant never being friends with a Lady like her. “He might be my friend, and he might not.”
“You’ll have to decide one way or another,” Grand-Jane said. “Now tell me the rest of it.”
Where to start? “I had to prove that I am the true Lady of the Summerlands,” Fer said slowly.
“Prove?” Grand-Jane asked, turning from the counter with her eyebrows raised. “You either are or you aren’t.”
Fer shrugged. “They didn’t like that I’m partly human. There was a contest. I lost every part of it but . . .” She shook her head. “I won in the end.” She’d won because of her human-ness, she knew, which was funny when she thought about it. “I’m the true Lady now, and I swore an oath to serve the land and the people.”
“Usually it works the other way, I think,” Grand-Jane said.
“Yes,” Fer said. “Usually the people swear oaths to their Lords or Ladies.” She didn’t like oaths. They were a giant, knotty problem that she hadn’t figured out yet. She edged farther into the kitchen. “At the end of everything some Lords and Ladies and their leader, who’s named Arenthiel, invaded my lands. I defeated them—well, not just me, but all of us, and the pucks too—and I made them swear to take off their glamories and stop ruling their lands and their people.”
“
You
made
them
swear an oath?” Grand-Jane asked. She had stopped making tea and was leaning against the counter, listening.
Fer nodded, and her stomach gave a lurch. “I had to. The glamories are really bad.”
“Hmm.” Grand-Jane turned back to the counter; she plucked a few leaves off a marjoram plant on the windowsill and added them to the teapot. “I know the word
glamour
, but I don’t think I understand what a glamorie is.”
Fer had worn a glamorie twice, but she wasn’t sure she understood either. “Well, it makes the person who puts it on look beautiful.” That was one thing. “And if you give a command when you’re wearing it, people have to obey.” She hadn’t liked that part. And there was another thing. “It does something to the person wearing it too.” She thought back to the one long night she’d worn the glamorie—how it’d turned her thoughts icy cold and uncaring. “It made me feel frozen,” she finished.
Grand-Jane added boiling water to the teapot and brought it to the table. “And all the Lords and Ladies of the lands through the Way wear one of these things?” she asked.
“Most of them,” Fer said.
“And you think they should take the glamories off,” Grand-Jane said, setting out a mug. “Come and have some tea.”
Fer stepped farther into the kitchen. Being in the house
really
made her twitchy.
“It’s rosemary and lavender, with some marjoram for remembrance,” Grand-Jane added, stirring in a spoonful of honey made by her own bees. “There, nice and sweet.” She pushed the mug across the table, toward Fer.
“Thanks,” Fer said, and slipped into a chair. To make Grand-Jane happy, she could stay inside for a little while. It wasn’t so awful. She went back to her grandma’s question. “Um, yes.” She took a sip of hot tea. “It’s bad that the Lords and Ladies are wearing the glamories. They’re connected to their lands, just like I am. They don’t really need the glamories. It’s not good for anybody. The glamories give them power they haven’t earned, and it makes them rule their lands and people, instead of loving them and helping them.”
“You’ve brought changes to those lands,” her grandma said.
Fer nodded. Yes, she had.
Grand-Jane took a sip of tea. “They won’t like it.”
“I know,” Fer answered. She stayed quiet for a moment. “What do you think I should do?”
Grand-Jane frowned down at her tea. When she spoke, her voice was low. “Jennifer, the first time I let you go through the Way, I knew I was sending you into danger. I knew you had to go then, and I know you have to go back now. . . .” Her voice trailed off. Then her grandma took a deep breath as if she’d decided something. She looked up at Fer. “You demanded that those Lords and Ladies remove their glamories. You bound them to an oath that they might not be willing to fulfill. Now you have to deal with the consequences of that.”
Fer nodded. The girl part of her felt a little shivery at what Grand-Jane was asking her to do—to
deal with consequences
—but the Lady part of her knew her grandma was right. If the Lords and Ladies weren’t willing to abide by the oath they had sworn, bad things would happen unless Fer forced them, somehow, to fulfill their oaths.
That
somehow
was the problem.
They sat quietly and sipped tea for a while.
Fer felt the ceiling pressing down on her like a giant hand. Being away from her land made it feel like she had a gaping hole in her chest where her heart should be. The Summerlands pulled at her. So did the things she had to
deal with
. “Grand-Jane,” she started, jumping to her feet.
Grand-Jane sighed and set down her mug. “I know.” She got up and came around the table, where she pulled Fer into a hug. “You can’t stay.”
“I’m sorry,” Fer mumbled into Grand-Jane’s shoulder. She felt her grandma kiss her temple.
Then Grand-Jane pushed her toward the door and turned away. “Remember, my girl,” she said in a brisker voice, her back to Fer. “Remember that part of you is still human.”
“I don’t ever forget it,” Fer said.
“See that you don’t. And it sounds like you’ve stirred up some dangerous things over there. Be careful.”
“I will,” Fer said. She went to the door and opened it. The chill night air rolled in. On the doorstep she paused. Grand-Jane was all alone here. She’d been alone all the long, cold winter. “Will you come with me?” she asked. “Through the Way?” She’d asked once before, and her grandma had said no. But maybe this time . . .
“My place is here, Jennifer,” Grand-Jane said quietly. Fer heard her take a deep breath. “Next time, just don’t wait so long to come see me.”
“I won’t,” Fer promised—the kind of promise that couldn’t be broken. “I’ll come again soon.” And then she flung herself out into the night.